My Hypocritical Oath

The Hippocratic Oath is the oath traditionally taken by doctors and medical professionals promising to practice medicine ethically. The Hypocritical Oath, on the other hand, is when you suddenly say: Shit...I'm such a hypocrite!

Today, my friends, I swore the hypocritical oath. Granted, I swore it under my breath since my little guys were underfoot, but I swore it nonetheless.

I swore it because I realized that I'm asking -- no, expecting -- Bear to do something I'm not willing to do myself. It started when I got up this morning and discovered that Bear had once again broken into the crackers. I had bought crackers yesterday and stored them in the pantry in the basement. Unable to reach them this morning, Bear got his Winnie The Pooh stairs from the bathroom and took them downstairs to aid in his break-in. He then tore the boxes to pieces and used his little green craft scissors to cut into the bags of crackers. When he had had his fill, he hid the bags of crackers in the cupboard of the entertainment unit. Despite the shredded boxes and crushed crackers littering the floor in front of the TV, Bear seemed shocked that he had been found out. He may be on his way to being a criminal, but he won't be a very good one. I'm not sure whether to take comfort in that or not.

Like any good mother, I naturally took him to task for doing something he knows he's not allowed to do. Not too much trouble, because I recognize that his ADHD and lack of impulse control are at the root of his cracker capers, but still enough for him to get the message that Mommy wasn't pleased.

Along came lunch time and I started to make myself something smothered in ooey-gooey-cheesy goodness. Cheese is my weakness, and always has been. You'd think that I'd be a cheese snob having grown up in Montreal, but I'm not. Give me a good old medium Cheddar and I'm in heaven. No problem...all things in moderation, right? Except I don't do cheese in moderation. I do other foods in moderation, with a large side of cheese.

This wouldn't be such a bad thing (OK, it would still be bad. Shut up.) if it weren't for the fact that about seven or eight years ago I started to develop a rash on my hands. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was causing it, but it itched like mad. For a few years I suffered with it, trying one kind of cream or another. TheODDDad also has skin issues, so we switched to all-natural cleaning products and cosmetics when Bear was still an infant to see if we could find the cause of our issues. No such luck, until I removed cow's milk from Bears diet when he was about three years old. (Not ADHD related, so that's a whole other story) As a result, my dairy intake went down exponentially and my rash improved. I cut out milk and cheese altogether for a few weeks, and my rash disappeared altogether. Huh. Go figure.

So basically, I suffer from a similar problem to Bear. We are both sensitive to certain foods, but whereas his manifests in behaviour that affect other people, mine manifests in a rash that bothers no one but me. (And TheODDDad, who has to listen to me complain.)

So where does that leave me? It leaves me with the stark realization that I'm a hypocrite for asking my 6-year-old son to do something I'm not willing to do myself.

But I can live with that.

Pass the cheese.